Teaching against plagiarism in the EAP classroom.

Nathan, P.B.

Abstract

Teaching Against Plagiarism in the EAP Classroom Philip Nathan, Durham University Language Centre, UK Plagiarism, the unacknowledged or inappropriate use of source material in academic writing, is an area of major concern on university programmes, with all UK universities having regulations which warn students of penalties or even expulsion in the worst cases, for commission of this academic ‘crime’. Avoiding plagiarism presents a particular challenge for non-native speaker students faced with the need to produce high level thinking and writing in what is not simply a second language but what is also a second culture. In the face of these difficulties, Pecorari’s research (2003) indicating that there may be significant levels of plagiarism in the work of non-native students on academic programmes, can come as little surprise. All of the non-native speaker student assignments analysed in Pecoraris’ research, were found to contain text elements which were either highly similar to, or identical to, passages in source texts or which lacked acceptable attribution. However many cases of plagiarism may be unreported since the gravity and complexity of plagiarism cases can cause significant difficulties for academics (Sutherland 2005). The assumption of the paper presented here is that plagiarism can be largely attributed to the fact that non-native speaker students (and indeed native speaker students) are not adequately prepared for the linguistic tasks that they face on their academic programmes. Not only do many such students lack the basic linguistic resources necessary, but they also do not fully understand the role that citations and sources play within the structure of academic argument, and lack the linguistic mechanics to successfully integrate sources within their academic writing. While on most courses in English for Academic Purposes, the issue of plagiarism is certainly dealt with, many of the strategies used for teaching against plagiarism, while valuable to some degree, may not be as effective as would be desirable. Citation and referencing sessions tend to focus on low level features of conventional form. Teaching paraphrasing at the sentence level can help students to avoid using the precise wording of text elements, however it may also encourage students to follow a source text too closely. Summary writing approaches may in fact serve to enhance plagiarism, particularly if students are required to underline key elements of the text and join these elements together to form the summary. Warnings and threats do not enhance students’ capacity to avoid plagiarism which is in fact where the problems lie. Library-based research projects are invaluable EAP learning tools, however identifying plagiarism in multiple full-length texts is an almost impossible task in the short time available on many pre-sessional programmes, and even with the use of computerised anti-plagiarism software such as Turnitin or Copycatch, the news that a text is likely to be plagiarised will arrive too late to have a positive effect on the learning process. The proposal put forward in this paper, and indeed a major strategy employed on the English and Academic Study programme at Durham University, is to use techniques built around the idea of Writing from Constrained Sources. In simple terms students are required to generate academic texts in response to authentic or semi-authentic tasks which centre around limited numbers of academic source texts. This approach has a number of benefits. It requires the fitting of source text information within the framework of an academic argument, requiring the student to engage in thought processes which parallel those required on academic programmes. It requires students to employ language resources required for use of texts in such a manner, and therefore requires teachers to teach core academic language. Teacher feedback is focused around aiding the student to achieve the requirement of effective use of sources. Finally, using constrained sources means that observing whether or not plagiarism has taken place is feasible, and students can be properly advised on how to overcome their difficulties with respect to paraphrasing, evaluation, citation and referencing and other problem areas. The cycle of teaching and learning can be repeated so that the intellectual process and techniques required for avoiding plagiarism and using sources effectively can be ingrained. Teaching using the Writing from Constrained Sources approach is combined with the range of other approaches to developing students’ ability to avoid plagiarism. Writing from Constrained sources tasks are also used for assessment, and as a result students have an additional motivation to grasp the principles of effective and appropriate use of their academic sources. Fig 1. Teaching to Avoid Plagiarism with Writing from Constrained Sources Combined with other Approaches

Citation

Nathan, P. (2007). Teaching against plagiarism in the EAP classroom. In B. Beaven (Ed.),

• Conference Location: Harrogate
• Publication Date: 2007
• Deposit Date: Jan 17, 2011
• Pages: 102 -104
• Series Title: IATEFL Conference proceedings
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1697562